Hope Returned
by Stargazing BasketCase
Summary: They both wait, both hoping and needing to see the other. Ultimately, it only takes something small. TenRose. Post ‘Doomsday’. Sequel to ‘Wait For Hope’.


Title: **Hope Returned**

Rating: K+

Summary: They both wait, both hoping and needing to see the other. Ultimately, it only takes something small. Ten/Rose. Post 'Doomsday'. Sequel to 'Wait For Hope'.

Disclaimer: Je ne own pas (I don't own) Doctor Who (mores the pity) and I made no Geld (money I think) from this likkle ficcy.

This is a continuation of the drabble I wrote (called 'Wait For Hope') which was an AU 'Doomsday' ending. You could read that one first. Might be a good idea.

I have my American friend to thank for this, 'cause I re-watched 'School Reunion' with her 'cause she'd never seen any Doctor Who. Because she is useless.

So Leah? This is for you mate.

Enjoy!

Hope Returned

Rose Tyler stared into space, her expression vacant. Her fingers traced patterns on the requisition papers and forms in front of her; patterns that slowly translated into a single word, a name, repeated over and over and over again, embellished more and more every time.

_Doctor… Doctor… Doctor… _

She slowly counted in her head.

It was seven months and fourteen days since she had seen him last; longer since she had touched him, felt his cool skin strain over the muscles in his arms, felt his breath gust against her ear and hair as they stood in a tight, desperate embrace.

Seven months and fourteen days since she had asked him to wait for her.

Seven months and fourteen days since he had whispered "Forever".

And it hurt.

Every day it hurt, the pain wearing away at her mind.

Her life was monotonous now, every day the same. Get up, get dressed, go to work. Same as every other sap in this world and the same as she had been in the one she had been born in. She put on a face for her mother and newly-recovered father; told them she loved her 'consultant' job at Torchwood.

But it was killing her. Slowly, insidiously, but as definitely as any Dalek's attack.

Being away from _him_ was killing her.

Seven months and fourteen days she had got up in the morning with the hope that today would be the day that she found a way back, that she found that he had been wrong.

Seven months and fourteen days she had gone to bed in the evening and cried silently into her pillow with the devastating knowledge that she had spent one more day apart from him; one more day wasted.

And today was no different.

She shook herself.

Never say 'never ever'; never say die.

Maybe today would be the day.

>>>>>>>>>

"Rose?"

She glanced up. "Hey Damien."

"Got some new stuff downstairs," her colleague said, leaning against the doorframe, black hair flopping over his eyes. "They want you to take a look."

There was something in her voice that made her look up, _properly _look up. "What's up?" she asked softly.

Damien's face screwed up gently. "I dunno," he replied. "It's just something about this new lot they brought in. It feels… weird."

"Weird? Can you get a bit more specific?"

"No. Weird."

Rose pushed the papers away from her and dropped her biro on top of them. "Let's go have a look then." She smiled. "At the weirdness."

>>>>>>>>>

Rose Tyler was a bit of an oddity herself; had an air of 'weirdness'.

Damien knew that he stigmatised himself by hanging around with her, but he just couldn't resist. She was funny and quirky and full of herself. And, of course, undeniably gorgeous.

He admitted it freely to whomever questioned him; he had a crush on Rose Tyler.

In fact, he would be willing to say that he loved her.

And he knew that he wasn't that bad looking himself, so he had reckoned on getting her pretty easily when she turned up at Torchwood.

But, as it turned out, she didn't play the dating game at all.

Whenever anyone mentioned their latest boy/girlfriend her face went through an odd little contraction and she went all quiet for the next couple of hours.

Damien figured it on a relationship gone south, nothing more.

But seven months on and she was still like that…?

It didn't matter to him. He could wait for her.

>>>>>>>>>

There was the usual jumble of alien oddments and artefacts scattered around the room when the pair of them walked in. "Over here." Damien pointed out the direction and took the lead, Rose trailing behind him.

His statement of 'weirdness' was half-right. Something felt _different _in this room. Not necessarily weird, but different. And familiar.

Her heart rose and she jogged up beside her colleague.

"Here." Damien's green eyes narrowed.

Rose looked at him for confirmation. "It's a ring."

"Kinda stating the obvious. But that's not what's weird. Pick it up."

She frowned at him. "No gloves?"

"No gloves."

_Huh. _

Rose reached out, her fingers shaking. _Maybe it will be today after all. _

Hope.

It was small, this alien ring. The band looked like gold shot through with veins of silver; the paler metal twisting and turning in circles and squares and shapes with no names and forms with thousands. The stone was small, a deep scarlet gem that winked up at her under the harsh electric lights. It seemed to call to her.

Her fingers paused, just above the metal. "What does it do?" she asked softly, commanding. Her voice sounded like _his_, and she smiled internally.

"Pick it up," Damien replied.

It was cool as her fingers closed around it. In fact, it was the exact same temperature as his skin had been, last time she'd touched him. The stone's edges were almost-sharp against the pads of her fingertips.

But it didn't do anything.

She looked up at Damien.

"Wait."

She waited.

And then the world exploded in a cacophony of lights and colours and sounds and images. She fell back with a staggering step and gasped in ecstasy.

This wasn't _weird_.

This was _beautiful_.

"Ride it out Rose," she heard Damien saying to her. "It'll stop soon. Just stay with me here. Ride it out."

But she didn't want it to. Didn't want it to end.

_She could see him. Oh God, she could see him. _

"Doctor…" Her voice was a whisper. A murmur that penetrated time and space. And dimensions.

She saw him hear her, saw him turn. Saw him look up.

Saw him see her.

His eyes widened in sharp shock, and then joy spread across his face. His lips moved, yelling something that only she heard, as an echo of a whisper inside her mind.

_Rose! Rose! Oh God Rose! You did it! _

"Doctor!" Her voice was louder now. "Just wait! Please, just a little longer!"

_I know! Rose, I know! _

Realisation and sudden piercing grief. "Doctor, I don't know how to work it!"

_Neither do I._ A slight smile. _I don't think anyone does. Just… Just want it! Want it with everything you are. _

"But I… I don't understand…"

He smiled at her and courage flooded her mind. _You can do it Rose. I know you can. You don't _have _to understand. _His eyes sparkled. _I love you Rose Tyler! I love you! I love you! You can do it, I know you can! I love—_

And then he was gone, the echo of his voice sounding above the _thump__thump thump_of her pounding heart.

>>>>>>>>>

She gasped sharply. "No…"

"Rose?" Damien was immediately worried. He took a step towards her, ready to catch her if she fell.

"_No…" _She looked like she was in pain.

"Rose, what's wrong?" He reached out to touch her, just a brush of fingers over flesh. "D'you want to go to the medical facilities? Are you okay?"

She seemed to stare off into space, working something out inside her head. Then she smiled decisively. "Norway."

He blinked. Had she just called him 'Norway'? "What?"

"Norway. Bad Wolf Bay."

Evidently not then. "Rose…"

She looked up at him. "I need to get to Norway."

_What's wrong with England? _"But…"

Pain flickered across her face, and she slumped down in desperation. "I've no way of getting there." Her voice was a whisper.

Damien caved. _You're so smitten, _he cursed himself.

"C'mon Rose," he said, sighing. "You need to get to Norway that bad? Okay. I'll take you."

>>>>>>>>>

They talked while he drove; talking about banal things. Music played softly in the background, some cheesy love song by some three-day celebrity. The countryside flashed by quickly, and it was hours until Damien braved a proper question.

"So. What are you looking for?"

Rose spun the stolen ring around on her finger. "A…" She paused. "A… friend," she answered. "A close friend." She smiled at that.

"In Norway?"

"Nothing wrong with Norway."

"I never said there was."

She sighed. "He… We lost touch a while ago. I've been looking for a way to contact him for a while." She held up her hand, watching the red gem sparkle in the slowly dying sunlight.

"Why did you need the ring?" Damien laughed jokily. "You wouldn't let go of it, but it's probably from another planet! Is your friend an alien or something!"

She smiled sadly. "Yeah, that would be something, wouldn't it."

There was a quiver in her voice that made him pause. His laughter died away, but the smile remained on her face.

"D'you miss him? Your friend."

"Every second of every day."

_Do you love him? _The question wasn't voiced, but it was there.

They drove in silence for some time after that.

>>>>>>>>>

They slept in the car, Rose sprawled across the back seat and Damien curled up in the boot. The skies stretched above them, dark and infinite, stars pricking holes in the inky blackness.

Damien snored softly a foot away, but it wasn't the noisy inhale and exhale that kept Rose awake. It was the gnawing fear in her gut that she was wrong, that there was no way back to him, that she was deluding herself. That she should just give up, go back, settle into normality.

And then the sorrow that, by finding her way back to the Doctor, she would loose all contact with her mum and Mickey, and even Pete, the surrogate father she wasn't comfortable with. Forever.

But…

That was never an issue.

Jackie and Mickey were settled in here, and Pete was supposed to be here. They were comfortable with their lives. They were happy, but she was being crushed by the oppressiveness of it all. She had gotten the taster of travel with the Doctor, now she wanted, _needed _more.

She hoped that they understood why she had done this. Pete, Jackie and their new baby were on a trip abroad and had left no contact number. Rose had left a tearful message for them. Her mum knew that she needed to get back to the Doctor; Rose had said as much. He had shown her wonders that she could never have imagined back in little old London; she _had _to go to him. She couldn't live without him.

She loved him with all that she was and all that she would ever be.

She closed her eyes. "Doctor…" she breathed to the night air, and she imagined that she heard his reply drift to her through the walls of time and reality.

_My Rose. _She could almost see him smile, something more than a bare memory. _I'm waiting. _

He had waited forever for her.

And she was nearly back to him.

>>>>>>>>>

The sand crunched beneath her shoes as she paced slowly across Bad Wolf Bay, her fingers clenched around the ring. _Are you here? _she called. _Can you hear me? _

There was no reply.

She wasn't expecting one.

"Rose?" Damien asked softly from beside her.

She didn't answer.

"How d'you know that he'll be here?" he asked in exasperation. "There's no guarantee he knows that you're here! There's no guarantee he _cares!_"

"There is," she murmured.

"How do you know!"

She smiled and glanced at him. "He's the Doctor."

"The Doctor," Damien stated flatly.

"The Doctor." Rose looked down at the ring in her hand. _Just want it…_

"Who the hell is 'the Doctor'?"

"You'll see. Soon."

She closed her eyes, clenching her fingers around the alien jewellery. He had said 'just want it', and she did, with all her heart. She breathed in, a deep shuddering breath of air that she wasn't supposed to breathe from a world that she shouldn't be in.

"_Doctor…" _she whispered, her voice the ghost of a murmur.

And something changed.

>>>>>>>>>

She was flung back in her mind; back to a past adventure with her Doctor. A school somewhere, Mickey, a tin dog, Sarah-Jane Smith. She watched it all as a third-person observer; there, but unfeeling.

_What am I doing here? _she wondered to herself.

And then she remembered.

The code that the Krillitanes had been trying to crack, in what seemed like another lifetime. What the Doctor had called the 'Godmaker'.

The Skasas Paradigm.

_Oh my God. _

She looked down, splaying her fingers before her. The ring fitted perfectly around the middle finger of her right hand, and the red gem winked up at her with impunity.

It seemed to be glowing, and strange symbols flickered across the surface; shadows of light. They looked familiar, but before they had spun across computer screens.

_Oh my God, oh my God. _

She just knew, beyond a fraction of a doubt what was happening.

Somehow, somewhere, someone had cracked that code that Finch had had a go at. But instead of changing time and space to suit themselves, _they had contained that knowledge in the ring that she wore. _

The Godmaker. And as she stood there, the knowledge of absolutely everything flooded into her mind.

"Oh my God!" Damien's voice. "Rose! You're glowing!"

She was too; a scarlet glow that encompassed her entire body. _The Godmaker. _"This is my way home," she said, wonderingly.

"What, back to London?" He was confused now; confused and more than a little scared.

"No." She smiled. "Back to the TARDIS. Back to my Doctor."

" 'TARDIS'?"

She ignored him and raised her hand before her, fingertips glowing red as blood. "Back to my own world." Her hand curled into an almost-claw shape, fingers arched forward.

"What are you doing?" He was backing away from her, and she turned her head to look at him. She smiled gently.

"I'm reopening a gap between this world and the next," she replied.

"Why?"

"To get home." Her smile grew wider as a tiny pinprick appeared, nestled in her palm. "I'm not from this world," she explained. "I was trapped here. Along with Mum and Mickey."

"But Rose… I…"

He was fighting to say something, and she knew what. She smiled. "No Damien. You don't. Not in that way at least." He swallowed, opened his mouth then shut it. "Just trust me. You don't."

He subsided, and Rose turned her head back to the growing hole above her hand. She could just see through it, and her heart leaped as she recognised the familiar colours of the control room of the TARDIS.

The hole widened, slowly but surely.

"Doctor," she murmured softly. "Are you there?"

He hove into view, grinning through at her.

"Who the hell is that?" Damien demanded from beside her.

The Doctor waved through at him. "I'm the Doctor!" he exclaimed, joy on his face and in his voice. "Hello!"

The hole suddenly tore at the edges; ripping wider, taller, becoming a rough doorway into the TARDIS.

The two worlds were joined.

>>>>>>>>>

Rose looked over at Damien. She smiled. "Keep an eye on Mum for me?"

He nodded numbly. "You're really going."

"I am."

"What'll I tell the bosses?"

She grinned. "Tell them I went home." And she stepped through the doorway and it closed behind her with an almost-audible _snap! _

Damien was left standing on the soggy sand in the middle of Bad Wolf Bay.

>>>>>>>>>

"Hello."

"Hello."

"Hello."

"Doctor…"

He grinned at her, his face illuminated by the pulsing column. "Rose."

She smiled.

"How did it work?" he asked, his gaze drawn to the ring on her hand.

She ran her thumb over the swirled band. "Remember the Krillitanes?"

"The Skasas Paradigm?"

"Yeah." She smiled. "Like you said. 'Just want it'."

They stood there, frozen.

Then he opened his arms to her, and she tumbled into his fierce embrace, wrapping her arms around his neck and sobbing softly into his shoulder. "My Doctor," she whispered. "My Doctor."

She could feel sobs shake through his body too. "I thought I lost you," he murmured into her hair.

"You nearly did," she whispered back.

"My Rose." His arms tightened, drawing her off her feet. "My Rose Tyler."

"My Doctor," she responded. She smiled, her eyes sliding shut. "I love you, my Doctor."

He smiled into her hair. "I love you too, Rose Tyler." He broke out into a fully-fledged 'Doctor' grin. "Oh Rose. I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I lo—"

She cut him off by kissing him. Hard.

And without a moment's hesitation, he kissed back.

end


End file.
